


Offer

by Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Aggression, Assassination Plot(s), Assassins & Hitmen, Garleans (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Nobility, Organized Crime, Other, Politics, Subterfuge, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker/pseuds/Big_Spicy_Garlean_Fucker
Summary: It's a crime for blood to be spilled on the Senate floor. Outside, though? It's fair game.[Garlean politics/organized crime snippet. Yes, I've seen The Godfather.]





	Offer

**Author's Note:**

> Story about Titus van/het Batiatus, a retired Legatus and current Senator in a bit of a political pickle. Whatever is this man of the law to do? Go to the fucking mafia, of course.
> 
> Check out Titus's backstory [ here.](https://lucius-ffxiv.tumblr.com/House%20Batiatus) Fair warning, it's depressing.
> 
> (House Mercator characters used with permission. They're not mine, but they sure are fun to write!)  
(Garlean underground service sublevel concept (c) sasra.)

“Don Mercator. I require your aid.”

Titus knows fully well how things work down here. Not by virtue of being taught, but by making enough social blunders the likes of which would see most senators shot through the skull. Down here, it’s a completely different world to the rank-and-file society up above. The vented streets of Garlemald remain all crisp and clean, thanks to the work being done underground. Maintenance men tending to the public utilities, and high-profile criminals trading in black market goods. It’s a haven for career crooks, assassins and dealers and spies. The ones who can’t survive in the public eye, won’t suffer another mean look from the military police, and most certainly need the warmth of the steam pipelines to keep from freezing to death.

It’s almost cozy down here, in the private office of Rogelius Mercator – what with all the rich red carpeting and wood-paneled walls a far cry from the black stone tunnels outside. Titus reminds himself not to get too comfortable as he stands before the second most powerful man in Garlemald. Rogelius has a kindly face and manner, perfectly playing the part of a benevolent old soul. But Titus knows better. He has to.

“Oh!” Rogelius leans forwards, adjusting his rectangular glasses. “My goodness, is that a Batiatus I see? How long it’s been since I’ve seen one of you down here! Lucretius, yes?”

Titus winces down to the very core of his being, though his stoic features merely tighten up. “Titus. His son.”

“Ahhh! Such a shame, what happened to your father! A fine businessman he was. Ruthless, cunning.” Tapping the side of his head, Rogelius smiles. His pale blue eyes shimmer silvery-grey when he tilts his head to the left, illuminated by the ceruleum lamp on his desk. “You look ever so much like him. Tall and strong. Tell me, my boy, what can I do for you?”

Titus sucks in a silent breath and wills the electrifying cold in his chest to go down, to cease, to stop prickling up his neck and filling him with the need to run. “I need someone dead. A Consul. Humiliated me on the Senate floor.”

Rogelius glances to a bit of paper and tugs it closer with a bony finger, scooching it out of a rather disorderly pile. A pen spins between his fingers as he inquires further. “When?”

“As soon as possible.”

The Don lifts a thick, angular brow. “When did he anger you so, dear Titus? It wasn’t at yesterday’s assembly, was it?” When Titus gives him a terse nod, Rogelius shakes his head, tutting. “Oh dear me. You don’t think it’d be suspicious, if we kill him just days after he slighted you so? Think about how it would look – no doubt your fellows saw this, and would begin to whisper…”

“They’re Senators, they always whisper!” Titus hears a quiet shifting behind him and just barely catches sight of a black-suited figure eyeing him in the reflection of the desk lamp. He’s never been good at keeping his voice down, and Rogelius grins at the familiar temper known to rival that of House Galvus. “Rrgh. Het Aurelius, the bastard, directly challenged a proposition of mine.” He pauses, expecting to be questioned further, already recalling his superior debate tactics used to convince entire rooms of people. The Don merely blinks at him, pen tapping a series of dots onto his page.

“You can tell me, if you like. You know I have no qualms with anyone’s policies, as long as they serve in Garlemald’s best interests.”

“Mh. It was a higher tax on liquor, to combat the issues of public and professional misconduct of higher-ranking officers. Leading cause of good men being fired for a lapse in judgement, never mind that most of them can’t live with themselves without being under the influence of _something_. War does that to you, you know?”

“I know.” Rogelius dips his head. “You, more than anyone, would know this. Still a Legatus?”

Titus shakes his head. “My Tribunii look after matters of the Xth. I only really have to sign off on matters of extreme import now and then.”

“Good, good. You can rest.”

“Not in the Senate. Not with that _bastard_…” Titus’s fingers curl into fists, scarred hands white-knuckled and shaking. It does not go unnoticed by Rogelius, nor his guards.

“Patience, Titus. Tell me about him, this het Aurelius. He’s the head of the Populares, isn’t he?” A bit of scribbling goes down on the page. “Praenomen, Augustus…?”

Titus’s lip curls with disgust. “Yes, him. Took over from the Priscii a while back and he’s given me nothing but trouble since.” He eyes the smirk on Rogelius’s face and wants to ask if he had a hand in that, the dual assassination of the heads of House Priscus. Left a lone son orphaned, and he’s kept tabs on the guy ever since. But he knows better than to stick his nose into the Syndicate’s internal affairs, and returns to the topic at hand. “He opposes many Optimates, but seems to have it out for me, personally. Me! I’ve done _nothing_ to him-”

“Nothing but hold an opposing view, which as you know in the Senate can get you killed.” Rogelius puts his pen down and folds his long, pale fingers together. The warmth of his smile is almost unnerving. “After all, that’s why you’re here! To get rid of that nasty, nasty thorn in your side.” Titus nods, drawing breath to speak, but the Don continues. “I would highly suggest waiting a few months, for two purposes: to allow your fellows to forget his slight againts you, and to give him enough time to irk someone _else_. What a convenient time it would be to make him disappear after bothering someone else, hm? It’ll take a world of suspicion off your head.”

Titus wants to squirm. He doesn’t like the sound of that, indirectly framing some poor bastard from his own party just to get rid of his most pressing political opponent. The Optimates outnumber the Populares 10:1 in the Senate, with said Populares barely having a voice amidst the pureblooded circle-jerk. Quite a lot goes on under those senatorial robes, though Titus has ever been one to turn a blind eye to the personal motivations and machinations of his colleagues. They always listen to him, after all. Augustus het Aurelius does not. And so he wants him dead, but at what expense…?

Rogelius is staring at him, choosing only to comment when Titus returns to the world of the living. “You’re conflicted,” he states in the softest voice. Titus cuts his gaze aside. “Understandable, in a matter of life and death.”

“It’s not that, I just-” Titus rubs at his jaw with a large, stiff hand. “I don’t want to shaft one of my own like that, frame them.”

“Yet you would ask me to cut off the head of the Populares, under-represented as they are in the Senate, and leave the people without a voice?” Rogelius gestures placatingly as Titus’s brow twitches. “Rest easy, my boy, I hold no particular alignment myself. The reason the Populares are there is not to offer you opposition, but to let everyone have a voice in the way our mighty nation is run. Naturally, there’ll be a bit of prideful nipping here and there, but it’s all in the name of thorough discussion and unique views.” He sets both hands down atop his desk, flat. “That said, if you want Augustus dead, that is something I most certainly can do. Not immediately, but in time. Your offer?”

Titus breathes in. He runs a few figures in his head, and tries to remember what would be an appropriate, non-insulting tribute. “Two million den?”

Rogelius looks about ready to have a stroke, and both his guards shift audibly. Titus prepares himself for a thorough beating until the Don slaps the desk and laughs heartily. “My goodness, shoot any further and we’ll all be drowning in your generosity! That won’t be necessary. Eight hundred thousand, and a few suggested policy changes?” He picks up his pen and starts writing down several lines of somewhat legible print. “I’ll look forward to hearing them at the next assembly.”

Titus speaks before he thinks. “You have eyes in the Senate?”

Rogelius looks up, and his gaze gleams knowingly. “Why, of course I do! I’ve got you!” He tears off the bottom of the paper and folds it in half, offering it out. “Here. I’m sure you’ll find our ideas most agreeable. When can I expect the transfer?”

“Er- next week, if you like.” Titus dips his head fast enough to scatter his faded blonde curls out of their coif, but it does little to make him look as respectful and polite as he’d like. Rather cowardly, in fact; the set of mannerisms ill-suiting this seven and a half fulm beast of pure arrogance.

“Take your time.” says Rogelius, “I’ll be waiting.” With that, he dismisses Titus in silence and goes back to scribbling on the page. Titus doesn’t know whether to bow or salute, so he just nods awkwardly and leaves. One of the guards holds open the door for him.

It isn’t long before there’s a knock at the door, one Rogelius recognizes as belonging to his eldest son, Remus. As predicted, Remus barges right through the door before his father can say a word. The guards, used to this, remain still.

“I trust you saw Batiatus on his way?”

Remus snorts, his scarred face twisting into a grimace. “Sure did. The man’s a damn lost puppy when he thinks he ain’t being watched.”

Rogelius lifts a brow. “Come now, he’s never been down here before. Far too accustomed to the streets above, just like the rest of them.”

“Pah.” Striding further into the room, Remus pauses before his left arm comes up and five metallic fingers brush against his cheek. “I tried talking to him about the Pops, but he wouldn’t say shit. You’d think he’d be more open to hating on them with a fellow Optimate.”

“Remus.” Gentle disappointment permeates the Don’s suave voice, but his face betrays nothing but compassion. “You know we’re not supposed to get involved.” He knows how much his son hates to be lectured, and tries to restrain himself by watching the ceruleum currents spark through Remus’s magitek arm. The lad – forty years old, so definitely not a boy any more – clenches his fingers into a fist and growls.  
“He’s the Consul of the Optimates, damn it! You think I’d just pass up a chance to talk to him, get to know what goes on inside his head?” He sucks in a sharp breath. “You don’t want to know what I heard this morning.”

“I do, and I suppose that’s why you’re here, about to tell me?” The Don pours himself a fifth of whiskey from the decanter just by his right, then one for his son. “Sit down, talk.” Remus takes the offered glass in his right hand and sinks into the nearest armchair with a grunt. It’s only when he’s taken a few sips does he speak.

“Word from the boys is that he’s been marked by a Popularis. Several, in fact.” Remus runs a silver finger along the side of his jaw, where sandy blonde stubble pokes out in patches amidst old scars. “You know anythin’ about that?”

Leaning his elbows on the desk, Rogelius brings a hand to his third eye and stares down into his glass. “…Yes, I think I do.” He sighs heavily, closing his eyes. The wrinkles around the sides of his mouth deepen. “Het Aurelius?”

“Yeah. I mean, probably. I don’t know, he’s got middlemen out the ass talking to our guys. Fucking skeevy little eikon-fucker he is-”

“Remus! Emperor’s name, you’d make a fine Batiatus. What is he offering?”

Remus’s thin lips part around the rim of his glass, which he lowers into his lap. “Are you serious? You want to do it?”

“Remember, son, we do what we do for _Garlemald_, not the Optimates. They’ve held such strong sway in the Senate for so many years…” Rogelius regrets it the minute he opens his mouth, watching the vitriol seep through his son’s countenance. “Would a balancing act really be so bad?”

“The Populares do _not_ kill people, father! That’s what stinks about this whole thing – they wait for an Optimate to flex their might, money, whatever –“ A gesture to the door refers to Titus’s presence just moments prior. “And then they use it for propaganda, talking about how _cruel_ and _unethical_ we are. And now what, they want to use us to stab one cleanly in the back?” He downs the rest of his drink and sets the glass aside, instead of crushing it as he so often does when angered. “Hell. I’ll stab him _myself_. Them Pops don’t know shit. Going to cause the downfall of society if you let ‘em run around unchecked.”

“Hm.” Rogelius flicks his gaze back down. “And what is he offering, remind me again? Batiatus offered two million.”

Remus squints. “He’s way richer than that. You see the cut of his suit? Hoooh.” He fans himself with one hand. “Sixty million. That’s the word on the street.”

“S-SIXTY MILLION?!” The guards flinch as Rogelius stands up with a loud scrape of his chair, nearly falling over the thing as he begins to pace. “Oh no, that just won’t do. It’ll destabilize the economy…! If that sort of money comes to us, it’ll be terribly difficult to move – why would he offer so much?” He clicks his fingers together soundlessly. “He knows he’s going to die, doesn’t he? So instead of passing down his wealth – he has a son, right? A daughter?”

“Two.” says Remus. “Two daughters, one son deployed with the Vth. Also cheating on his wife with a savage. Some white-horned lizard thing.” His left wrist whirs as he rotates it, tapping his segmented fingers together. “We could do something with that.”

“No, no, we do NOT get involved!” Rogelius hunches over some, short of breath. “Sixty million… We’d have so many _taxes_ to pay, every single lawmaker in Garlemald is going to want a piece of that… and this is with what, Batiatus dead?” Remus nods, scowling. “And if we knock Aurelius… well, that money isn’t going to be any of our business, is it? With hope, it’ll go back to the people.”

Remus rises and throws his hands out wide, in a grand gesture of mighty exasperation. “The people, the people. Father, all you do is think about the people! What about _us_?”

Rogelius side-eyes him. “What do you mean? We have more than enough…”

“It’s not enough!” Remus snaps, “It’s not! We crawl around under here like crooks, can’t even see the sun in Summer, can’t build nothin’, can’t even go to the damn beach without a hundred bodyguards. Imagine how it’d be if we had a place up there? A nice mansion or something down in the South?”

“You want to live with the _savages_ there?” Incredulous, Rogelius stares at his son. “In case you’d forgotten, we ARE crooks! We don’t need the sun in Summer, and can build whatever we like in the ground! You want to be an architect, is that it? Wear white shirts and round glasses and design high-rises, is that it? Get a nice paycheck and buy yourself a villa?”

“Don’t fucking mock me!” Remus’s voice thunders across the room along with the crunch of his metal fist hitting the wall. “You don’t know how hard it is! I can’t do shit above ground ‘cause everyone stares at me, my men, the whole thing, it’s fucked! I’ve given my bloody _skin_ for this family, and a freakin’ Senator won’t even talk to me!”

“You are a CRIMINAL, Remus, and he is a man of the law! We are all criminals here, every last one of us!” Not even the guards can refute that. They’ve all killed for the Syndicate more times than they can count.  
  
“That why he’s come down here, then? Man of the law, hanging about us nasty crooks?” Remus shakes his head, green eyes acidic. “I want to _be_ someone, and not have to hide the rest of my whole damn life. Romulus, Regis, they get to be in the Militum. Me? I’d be poisoned or some shit within a week.”

“You _are_ someone, boy, and your place is _here_.” Rogelius jabs a finger down at his desk. “We all lead the lives we are meant to live – no-one said it’d be easy.” Before his son can interrupt him, he shoots a menacing glare to Remus with all the strength he can muster. His third eye begins to ache. “Romulus is a good leader of his men, and our strongest connection to House Galvus. Regis simply doesn’t have the heart for the kind of work we do here.”

“And I do, eh? Mean, scarface Remus, with the spooky magitek arm and an army of drugged-up gangsters. Fuck’s sake, man, there has to be more than this.” Flexing his fingers, he rubs at his forearm. It’s cool and smooth as usual, completely without texture. “There has to be.”  
  
“You want the money?” Rogelius tilts his chin up. “Go get it. Rob the Aurelius Estate and see where that gets you.”

Remus stares at him for a while, lips curling into a devilish smile. Never mind the thinly withheld tears in his eyes. “You know what? I think I will.” He makes for the door, but not before turning and offering his father a magnificent bow. “Don Mercator.”

**Author's Note:**

> nb; the name "Rogelius" means 'Prayed For'.
> 
> This is the first fic I've ever written entirely using 'web layout'.


End file.
